Group General Manager - DC Operations & Fulfilment

Group General Manager - DC Operations & Fulfilment (3634173) Staffordshire, England

Salary: GBP80000 - GBP90000 per annum + DOE + Bonus + Car Allowance + Benefits

Group General Manager: Distribution Centre Operations and Fulfilment

Build it. Lead it. Own it. Then make it better.

If your career has been built on the warehouse floor and the boardroom in equal measure - if you can read a throughput report and a P&L with the same authority, if next-day, in-full, no-excuses fulfilment is the standard you have always held yourself to - then this role was created for you.

The Operation

Our client is a well-established, privately owned British group distributing a broad, technically diverse range of products to professional wholesale and specification customers across the UK and internationally. The operation is multi-site, high-SKU, high-velocity, and runs a next-day just-in-time delivery commitment on all orders placed before 4pm. That is not an aspiration. It is a commercial promise to customers who depend on it.

The DC handles a complex mix: standard stock-to-pick operations alongside bespoke kitting, rework and configuration for specified project and installation orders. Inbound supply is managed from the Far East across multiple brands, and a live WMS and ERP implementation is underway across the group.

The business has grown substantially in recent years and is heading for £200 million and beyond, with an owner who is actively acquisitive and shows no sign of slowing. It is financially strong, professionally led, and genuinely people-first in a way that is evident from day one. The offices and DC’s are modern and well-appointed. The business is fully office-based and proud of it. The atmosphere is collaborative, energetic and purposeful. People who deliver are trusted, backed and given genuine autonomy.

The Opportunity

This is a newly created Group General Manager role - the first of its kind in the business. It reports directly to Director level and carries full operational accountability across all UK distribution and supply chain operations.

The mandate is twofold: build best-in-class now and design the infrastructure to support a business that is significantly larger in three to five years. This is not a maintenance role. It is a transformation and growth role. The incoming Group General Manager will define what excellent looks like for this operation, build the management team to deliver it, and present the roadmap to the Board with the conviction and data to back it.

• Take full operational accountability for DC and distribution operations across multiple UK sites, leading approximately 140 to 240 people across multiple shifts.
• Own the delivery of the live WMS and ERP implementation across all group entities - operational readiness, change management, go-live, and stabilisation.
• Drive a disciplined lean and continuous improvement agenda, with a specific focus on reducing unit touches from receipt to despatch.
• Ensure the next-day, in-full SLA is consistently delivered across all order types - from high-volume stock lines to bespoke kitted specification orders.
• Build the KPI and management information framework the business currently lacks: define what data is needed, how it is presented, and how it drives accountability.
• Develop and coach the management team, building bench strength beneath you and empowering first-line leaders to take genuine ownership.
• Present operational strategy and investment cases at Board level with clear ROI.
• Future-proof the operation for continued growth, including through acquisition.

The Profile

There is a specific type of operations leader who succeeds in a role like this, and it is not simply the most technically qualified one.

You will have come from an environment where next-day fulfilment to trade or specification customers is a commercial commitment - not a KPI. Where lean and JIT thinking is applied, not just referenced. Where the warehouse floor is where you spend your mornings, not somewhere you visit. Where the management team around you has developed because of you, not in spite of the system.

Backgrounds of relevance: automotive (where JIT, Kaizen and lean disciplines are embedded and expected); FMCG distribution with high-SKU complexity; technology distribution; medical devices; building materials trade; electrical wholesale; or any environment where accuracy and speed of fulfilment for a B2B specification or installation customer is a point of difference.

You will have personally owned a WMS or ERP implementation - not overseen it from a safe distance. You will have built a management team, not inherited one. You will be as comfortable in a pre-shift briefing at 6am as in a Board presentation at 2pm. And you will understand that in a privately owned, people-first business, credibility is earned on the floor before it is exercised in the meeting room.

• Senior operational leadership in multi-site warehouse and DC environments at comparable or greater scale and complexity. Own-account distribution, or 3PL with P&L accountability essential.
• Personal, operational accountability for a WMS or ERP implementation - readiness, change management, go-live. Must be able to describe what you specifically owned.
• Applied lean and continuous improvement experience with quantified outcomes. Green Belt or above is desirable; strong applied evidence base without formal qualification is acceptable.
• Experience of next-day JIT delivery to a trade, wholesale or specification customer base where the SLA is commercially binding.
• Direct experience of kitting, rework or configuration operations alongside standard fulfilment.
• People leadership at scale - built and developed management teams, not just led them. Evidence of coaching, mentoring and bench strength.
• Board-level communication - has constructed and presented operational strategy and investment cases with financial rigour.

Package

• Base Salary£80,000 to £90,000 per annum, dependent on experience.
• Company CarBMW 5-Series or equivalent, through the company scheme.
• Pension5% employer contribution.
• Health Cash PlanHealth Cash Plan at Level 5 - generous cash benefits across dental, optical, physiotherapy, chiropractor and more.
• BonusCompany performance-related.

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